5 ms·

Is being cruel and flippantly celebrating a suicide not condemnable enough?

ALittleLight 5y ago
I don't think it is the same as murder or should be illegal. Just yesterday YouTube recommended me a video about an Australian YouTuber facing legal trouble for being mean to an Australian government figure. The laws he may, or may not, have run afoul of use similar language about online harassment. The YouTuber claims to be calling attention to corruption and poor governmental practice. To me, the Australian YouTuber drama epitomizes a bad possible result of making online bullying illegal. Such laws will be used to squash genuine dissent - not just jerks. I do think the cruel people celebrating a suicide should be morally condemned. I would think less of people who do that. I wouldn't advertise there, work there, etc. But I don't think it should be illegal and it is not similar to murder.
- falcolas 5y ago
  Don’t you believe that actions should have consequences? Do you believe that psychological attacks can have a lasting impact? Do you think that threatening someone’s friends and families is a reasonable act? Do you agree that getting an intermediary to kill a third party is still murder? Why can’t the intermediary also be the third party? This was a pre-meditated and coordinated long term psychological attack, with the explicit goal of getting someone to kill themselves. These actions must have consequences.
  - emodendroket 5y ago
    I think it is difficult to get the definition of such a law right. You don't want to send someone for jail just for, e.g., frequently arguing with someone and sometimes insulting them.
    - sitkack 5y ago
      If the intent is to kill, and the person died through their actions, then it is murder. The methods and means don't need to be enumerated. The intent and the end state are what is defined in law. Both the US and Japan have standing here to charge KF members with murder and those that run KF as an accomplice.
      - emodendroket 5y ago
        Perhaps it doesn’t bother you but I’m worried about giving prosecutors yet another extremely broad tool that they can use to put people in jail on dubious grounds.
        sitkack 5y ago
        A group of people organize together with the intent of killing or harming others on the internet. This feels like an "on the internet" patent moment, absurdly so.
- GPerson 5y ago
  The original thread seems to exhibit gray area stalking. Look at post #84. https://kiwifarms.net/threads/byuu-byuu_nyan-setsunakun0.43056/page-5 https://kiwifarms.net/threads/byuu-byuu_nyan-setsunakun0.430... Looking through that thread, I wouldn’t be surprised if a cyberbullying case could be made in many states. There are early comments predicting and mocking the victim’s suicide far in advance of it. With all the evidence we’ve got, it seems like this cyberbullying has some culpability in a death. I am not saying these two situations are exactly the same, but here is a situation where someone used an electronic device to encourage a suicide and was prosecuted for manslaughter https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.californiacriminaldefenselawyerblog.com/amp/can-bullying-lead-to-an-involuntary-manslaughter-charge/ https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.californiacriminaldefensela... The posts along the lines of “I hope he does it so our kill count will increase by 1” don’t seem totally dissimilar.
  - Dracophoenix 5y ago
    IANAL, but the Michelle Carter case never made it to federal court as the Supreme Court declined to take the case. As a result, the case did not set a de jure precedent for how similar cases should be conducted outside Massachusetts. In addition, Kiwifarms is protected by §230 and the suicide took place in Japan. Under federal law, neither Null nor KF bear any responsibility for the decisions of the site's respondents and it is unlikely that any IP logs are kept. There's also the fact that any such a case would be thrown out for lacking territorial and subject matter jurisdiction. In other words, there's no case. On the matter of byuu's/Near's suicide, the (or at least one) motivation wasn't from bullying per se, but from Null's refusal to take down the 3 year old discussion thread regarding byuu. Source:https://kiwifarms.net/threads/byuu-byuu_nyan-setsunakun0.43056/page-14#post-9313342 https://kiwifarms.net/threads/byuu-byuu_nyan-setsunakun0.430...
    - GPerson 5y ago
      This Twitter thread strongly suggests the motivation was largely due to bullying from the Kiwi Farms forum, in addition to the owner’s refusal to do anything about the thread. https://mobile.twitter.com/near_koukai/status/1408940057235312640 https://mobile.twitter.com/near_koukai/status/14089400572353... I was arguing that the event could be considered more than nothing, possibly something like manslaughter due to possibly analogous events being considered as such. Not that the actors would be prosecuted under any particular law.
- chris_wot 5y ago
  That’s not what happened with FriendlyJordies. Christo approached John Barillaro, deputy premier of NSW, whilst happening upon him on his way to school (The Con). Barillaro then sicked an anti-terrorism task force on him, lying about almost ever aspect of the encounter. The difference? Those being actually stalked could never get this unit to act. A complete abuse of power. But different to this.

I don't think it is the same as murder or should be illegal. Just yesterday YouTube recommended me a video about an Australian YouTuber facing legal trouble for being mean to an Australian government figure. The laws he may, or may not, have run afoul of use similar language about online harassment. The YouTuber claims to be calling attention to corruption and poor governmental practice. To me, the Australian YouTuber drama epitomizes a bad possible result of making online bullying illegal. Such laws will be used to squash genuine dissent - not just jerks. I do think the cruel people celebrating a suicide should be morally condemned. I would think less of people who do that. I wouldn't advertise there, work there, etc. But I don't think it should be illegal and it is not similar to murder.

falcolas 5y ago
Don’t you believe that actions should have consequences? Do you believe that psychological attacks can have a lasting impact? Do you think that threatening someone’s friends and families is a reasonable act? Do you agree that getting an intermediary to kill a third party is still murder? Why can’t the intermediary also be the third party? This was a pre-meditated and coordinated long term psychological attack, with the explicit goal of getting someone to kill themselves. These actions must have consequences.
- emodendroket 5y ago
  I think it is difficult to get the definition of such a law right. You don't want to send someone for jail just for, e.g., frequently arguing with someone and sometimes insulting them.
  - sitkack 5y ago
    If the intent is to kill, and the person died through their actions, then it is murder. The methods and means don't need to be enumerated. The intent and the end state are what is defined in law. Both the US and Japan have standing here to charge KF members with murder and those that run KF as an accomplice.
    - emodendroket 5y ago
      Perhaps it doesn’t bother you but I’m worried about giving prosecutors yet another extremely broad tool that they can use to put people in jail on dubious grounds.
      - sitkack 5y ago
        A group of people organize together with the intent of killing or harming others on the internet. This feels like an "on the internet" patent moment, absurdly so.
GPerson 5y ago
The original thread seems to exhibit gray area stalking. Look at post #84. https://kiwifarms.net/threads/byuu-byuu_nyan-setsunakun0.43056/page-5 https://kiwifarms.net/threads/byuu-byuu_nyan-setsunakun0.430... Looking through that thread, I wouldn’t be surprised if a cyberbullying case could be made in many states. There are early comments predicting and mocking the victim’s suicide far in advance of it. With all the evidence we’ve got, it seems like this cyberbullying has some culpability in a death. I am not saying these two situations are exactly the same, but here is a situation where someone used an electronic device to encourage a suicide and was prosecuted for manslaughter https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.californiacriminaldefenselawyerblog.com/amp/can-bullying-lead-to-an-involuntary-manslaughter-charge/ https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.californiacriminaldefensela... The posts along the lines of “I hope he does it so our kill count will increase by 1” don’t seem totally dissimilar.
- Dracophoenix 5y ago
  IANAL, but the Michelle Carter case never made it to federal court as the Supreme Court declined to take the case. As a result, the case did not set a de jure precedent for how similar cases should be conducted outside Massachusetts. In addition, Kiwifarms is protected by §230 and the suicide took place in Japan. Under federal law, neither Null nor KF bear any responsibility for the decisions of the site's respondents and it is unlikely that any IP logs are kept. There's also the fact that any such a case would be thrown out for lacking territorial and subject matter jurisdiction. In other words, there's no case. On the matter of byuu's/Near's suicide, the (or at least one) motivation wasn't from bullying per se, but from Null's refusal to take down the 3 year old discussion thread regarding byuu. Source:https://kiwifarms.net/threads/byuu-byuu_nyan-setsunakun0.43056/page-14#post-9313342 https://kiwifarms.net/threads/byuu-byuu_nyan-setsunakun0.430...
  - GPerson 5y ago
    This Twitter thread strongly suggests the motivation was largely due to bullying from the Kiwi Farms forum, in addition to the owner’s refusal to do anything about the thread. https://mobile.twitter.com/near_koukai/status/1408940057235312640 https://mobile.twitter.com/near_koukai/status/14089400572353... I was arguing that the event could be considered more than nothing, possibly something like manslaughter due to possibly analogous events being considered as such. Not that the actors would be prosecuted under any particular law.
chris_wot 5y ago
That’s not what happened with FriendlyJordies. Christo approached John Barillaro, deputy premier of NSW, whilst happening upon him on his way to school (The Con). Barillaro then sicked an anti-terrorism task force on him, lying about almost ever aspect of the encounter. The difference? Those being actually stalked could never get this unit to act. A complete abuse of power. But different to this.